I was a Byron Shire councilor in 1969 to 1972. There was one officer that was the health officer, the building inspector and town planner. There was a Shire engineer. The two of them shared a secretary/typist. It was a busy time with new planning laws and there was major residential development within the shire.
Those same "functions" now support a staff, I believe, numbering over 20. Adding to the cost is council involving itself in business and projects that should not be within the province of the local council that are duplications of projects of State and Federal governments. The cost of all this is the reason for unreasonably high rates and a council looking for more and more funds.
The problem I found was that everything you did would upset 10% of the residents. With a different 10% being upset each time, it was easy to get a lot of people offside.
